The Southwest Airlines pilot being lauded as a hero in a harrowing emergency landing after a passenger was partially blown out of the jet's damaged fuselage is also being hailed for her pioneering role in a career where she has been one of the few women at the controls.

Tammie Jo Shults, one of the first female fighter pilots in the U.S. Navy, was the captain and piloting the Dallas-bound Flight 1380 when it made an emergency landing Tuesday in Philadelphia, according to her husband, Dean Shults.

One of the engines on the Boeing 737 exploded while the plane was traveling 500 mph (800 kph) at 30,000 feet (9144 m) with 149 people on board. Shrapnel hit the plane and passengers said they had to rescue a woman who was being blown out of a damaged window. The woman later died of blunt force trauma to her head, neck and torso.

Shults calmly relayed details about the crisis to air traffic controllers, and passengers commended her handling of the situation.

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Tammie Jo Shults

Friends at Shults' church in Boerne, Texas, about 30 miles northwest of San Antonio, said Wednesday they were not surprised after listening to the recording and reading media reports about her actions.

"Everybody is talking about Tammie Jo and how cool and calm she was in a crisis, and that's just Tammie Jo," Rachel Russo said. "That's how she's wired."

Shults was commissioned into the Navy in 1985 and reached the rank of lieutenant commander, said Commander Ron Flanders, the spokesman for Naval Air Forces in San Diego.

Women aviators were excluded from combat missions until the month after Shults got off active duty in March 1993, but Flanders said Shults flew during Operation Desert Storm trainings as an aggressor enemy pilot.

"While we at that time had an exclusion, she was in fact helping male pilots hone their skills," Flanders said.

Veteran Navy combat aviator Linda Maloney said that she and Shults were among a small group of women who worked to see the combat exclusion rule repealed.

"Obviously it was frustrating," said Maloney, who became among the first women to join a combat military flying squadron and was deployed to the Arabian Gulf. "We go through the same training that the guys do, and our hope was the Navy would allow us to fly in combat at some point."

Shults was featured in Maloney's book "Military Fly Moms" along with the stories and photos of 69 other women U.S. military veterans.

Russo and Staci Thompson, who has known Shults for about 20 years and was nanny to her two children when they were small, said she "loved" her military career but has alluded to frustrations and challenges that came with it.

They also said she embraced those experiences to make her stronger and guide her into a role as a mentor to young female pilots or girls thinking about a military career.

"She learned a lot about overcoming things as a woman in a male-dominated field," Russo said.

A boom, a whoosh of air and then terror on Flight 1380

There was a loud boom, and the plane started shaking violently. Air whooshed through the cabin, and snow-like debris floated down the aisle as oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. Some passengers wondered if they would ever hug their children again. At least one bought in-flight Wi-Fi as the jet descended so he could say goodbye to his loved ones.

A blown engine on a Southwest Airlines jet Tuesday hurled shrapnel at the aircraft and led to the death of a passenger who was nearly blown out of a broken window of the Boeing 737.

The terrifying chain of events on Flight 1380 brought out acts of bravery among the 149 passengers and crew members and drew across-the-board praise for the cool-headed pilot who safely guided the crippled jet to an emergency landing in Philadelphia during the 22-minute crisis.

A BANG, THEN 'DEBRIS IS FLYING IN YOUR FACE'

Alfred Tumlinson was traveling with his wife back to Corpus Christi, Texas, after attending a Texas Farm Bureau gala in New York City. About 30 minutes after the flight took off from La Guardia Airport, they heard a boom at about 32,000 feet over Pennsylvania, and the plane started descending.

A second bang followed, said Marty Martinez, a 29-year-old digital marketing specialist heading home to Dallas. That was when he saw a window blown out about two rows ahead of him on the other side of the plane.

Air rushed through the rapidly depressurized cabin, and "all this debris is flying in your face, down to the aisle of the plane, into the back of the plane," Tumlinson said.

As those aboard frantically started putting their masks on and helping others with theirs, passengers and crew members rushed to reach a woman in the 14th row who was being blown out head-first through the opening, even though she was wearing a seatbelt, according to investigators.

By at least one passenger's account, half her body was outside the plane.

A HERO IN A COWBOY HAT

A man in a cowboy hat, rancher Tim McGinty of Hillsboro, Texas, tore his mask off and struggled to pull the woman in. Andrew Needum, a firefighter from Celina, Texas, came to help, and the two of them managed to drag her back inside.

"It seemed like two minutes and it seemed like two hours," McGinty told reporters, a bandage on an arm he scraped while trying to save the woman.

McGinty's wife, Kristin McGinty, who was also on board, later told USA Today: "Some heroes wear capes, but mine wears a cowboy hat."

When a flight attendant asked if anyone knew CPR, retired school nurse Peggy Phillips got out of her seatbelt, and she and the firefighter laid the grievously injured woman down. The two of them began administering CPR for about 20 minutes, until the plane landed.

Jennifer Riordan, a 43-year-old Wells Fargo bank executive and mother of two from Albuquerque, New Mexico, didn't survive.

"If you can possibly imagine going through the window of an airplane at about 600 mph and hitting either the fuselage or the wing with your body, with your face, then I think I can probably tell you there was significant trauma," Phillips told ABC.

The Philadelphia medical examiner said she died of blunt impact trauma of the head, neck and torso.

CALM IN THE COCKPIT

When the engine blew, it caused the plane to abruptly bank an alarming 41 degrees to the left, and the aircraft began to vibrate, National Transportation Safety Board chairman Robert Sumwalt said Wednesday.

"Injured passengers, OK, and is your airplane physically on fire?" an air traffic controller could be heard asking in a recording of the transmissions.

"No, it's not on fire, but part of it is missing," Shults said. "They said there's a hole and, uh, someone went out."

The air traffic controller responded with seeming disbelief: "Um, I'm sorry, you said there was a hole and somebody went out?"

"Yes," Shults said.

SAYING FAREWELL VIA THE INTERNET

Some passengers took to social media to say their goodbyes to friends and family.

Matt Tranchin, who was heading home to Dallas, began texting his eight-months-pregnant wife and his parents that he loved them and telling them things he wanted his unborn son to know if the plane crashed and he didn't make it.

Martinez decided to buy in-flight Wi-Fi service. He searched for his wallet, then found himself fumbling to enter his credit card information as the plane shook. He said it seemed to take him forever as he kept typing in the wrong numbers.

He eventually made a Facebook Live post showing him and other passengers with oxygen masks on, the wind whipping in the background. He said he went with Facebook Live instead of texting people individually because he wanted to communicate with as many loved ones as possible.

"I had this feeling that I wasn't going to survive this, and having to think, who do I reach out to first? Do I text my mom, do I text my dad, my brother, my sister?" he said. "That was a very difficult position to be in, to think who is most important to your life and in what order?"

'I THOUGHT IT WAS THE END OF MY LIFE'

As the plane descended steeply but steadily toward Philadelphia, the cabin was noisy from the open window, but the passengers were mostly quiet, maybe because they had their masks on, said passenger Amanda Bourman, of New York.

"Everybody was crying and upset. You had a few passengers that were very strong and they kept yelling to people, you know, 'It's OK! We're going to do this!'" Bourman said. "I just remember holding my husband's hand, and we just prayed and prayed and prayed."

For Kristopher Johnson, a single thought flooded his mind: his wife and 13-month-old son Jakob.

"I thought it was the end of my life," Johnson, an assistant principal at East Montana Middle School in El Paso, Texas, told People.com. "I thought I'd never be able to see my son or my wife or my family again. That was the first thing that rushed through my head."

Kathy Farnan, a 77-year-old from Santa Fe, New Mexico, said people seated near her in the front, away from the damage, remained relatively calm. "There was no panic. Everybody was good. I think it was too early in the morning," she said.

Eric Zilbert, an administrator with the California Education Department, said even the children "did very well."

'NERVES OF STEEL'

Passengers praised Shults for her professionalism during the emergency. Shults, one of the first female fighter pilots in the Navy, was at the controls when the jet landed, according to her husband, Dean Shults.

She got a round of applause from the passengers after putting the plane down safely. She walked through the aisle and talked with passengers to make sure they were OK afterward.

"She has nerves of steel, that lady," Tumlinson said. "I'm going to send her a Christmas card, I'm going to tell you that, with a gift certificate for getting me on the ground. She was awesome."

Bank executive killed in jet tragedy remembered as selfless

A New Mexico bank executive who died on a Southwest Airlines flight was remembered Wednesday as a dedicated mother of two who helped others find jobs, volunteered around Albuquerque and brought often fractious sides together.

Jennifer Riordan's family said in a statement that the 43-year-old community leader died Tuesday on a flight heading from New York's LaGuardia Airport to Dallas that made an emergency landing in Philadelphia after its engine blew in midair and shrapnel hit the plane.

A retired registered school nurse said she performed CPR on Riordan, who passengers say was partially blown out of a damaged window on the jet.

Riordan was killed by blunt impact trauma to her head, neck and torso and her death was ruled accidental, according to James Garrow, spokesman for the Philadelphia Department of Health.

Riordan's death generated an outpouring of grief and public sympathy from Albuquerque business leaders, state elected officials, educators, writers and activists - all who portrayed Riordan as gracious and selfless.

"Jennifer's vibrancy, passion, and love infused our community and reached across our country," her family said. "Her impact on everything and everyone she touched can never be fully measured. But foremost, she is the bedrock of our family."

The Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce held a moment of silence Tuesday night during a special reception for new University of New Mexico President Garnett Stokes.

Albuquerque's former poet laureate and slam poetry champion Hakim Bellamy posted on social media that Riordan was a friend to him. "It doesn't seem fair," he said in a tweet .

Erin Muffoletto said Riordan was a fellow Chi Omega sorority sister whom she contacted during the economic crisis in 2008 as Muffoletto struggled to find steady employment.

"She encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone, looked over my resume and really pushed me," said Muffoletto, who eventually became a sought-out lobbyist in the New Mexico Statehouse.

Muffoletto said she spoke with Riordan just days ago. "The last thing she told me was, 'I'm proud of you,'" Muffoletto said.

Rebecca Avitia, the executive director of the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, said that losing Riordan casts a dark, heavy emptiness on the city.

"I've heard of references in Mesoamerican lore to a female spirit who appeared to people in need like a blazing sun with wings. In Albuquerque, that was Jennifer Riordan," Avitia wrote in online post. "Jennifer, I already miss you."

Riordan was well known in New Mexico, where she built a career over more than two decades in community relations and communications after graduating from the University of New Mexico.

At the time of her death, Riordan was a vice president for community relations with Wells Fargo. She oversaw the company's corporate giving program in New Mexico and volunteered her time with a number of area nonprofit groups and boards.

Riordan was appointed by the governor to a board focused on boosting volunteerism statewide and in 2015 was presented the Bill Daniels Award for Ethical Young Leadership by the Samaritan Counseling Ethics in Business Awards.

"As a parent, I've said to my kids, 'Be kind, loving, caring and sharing, and all good things will come to you'," she told the Albuquerque Journal when she accepted the award.

Riordan also served on the boards of Junior Achievement of New Mexico, New Mexico First and The Catholic Foundation.

Erin Hagenow, Junior Achievement's president, said Riordan was unmatched in her passion for the organization's mission and the students it serves.

"Our work going forward will forever be a testament to Jennifer's belief in the potential of every young person," Hagenow said.

Riordan and her husband, Michael Riordan, a former chief operating officer for Albuquerque under former Mayor Richard Berry, had been married for more than 20 years.